


Obstinance

by Suzie_b



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:27:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzie_b/pseuds/Suzie_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cid is injured in a battle and Vincent is left as his caretaker. This is why I don't do summaries, folks! One shot set during the game at no specific point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obstinance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elfen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfen/gifts).



It seemed as if the dust hadn't even begun to settle on the last fight when the next creature stepped forward to block the narrow path they were on. All of the travel on foot hadn't seemed so daunting at first, but Cid had decided that all of this walking bullshit had reached the end of its novelty. Now, with what appeared to be the biggest, ugliest turtle on the planet staring down at them, the pilot also began to decide that he'd never trust ground travel again.

"Which end are we supposed to hit this damn thing from, anyway?" The question was posed to the group in general, but before anyone could answer a shot rang through the air followed by an angry roar that seemed to shake the earth below their feet. For a split second, everyone- Cid included- fell silent.

"In the end that will take the most damage," was Vincent's helpful reply, followed by yet another gunshot as he attempted to figure out just where that part was stored. The sound seemed to break the spell and, in an instant, they fell into action as the creature started to lumber dangerously toward them.

Cid had just a split second to smirk at the remark before their opponent attacked full on, and before a decidedly young female voice broke in with a yell. It was a given that Yuffie's bid to wound the thing wasn't going to pay off, not this early on, and the pilot swore under his breath as he moved to cover her from the counter attack he was sure was going to come. "Brilliant fuckin' idea to split up," he yelled through the din of battle. "Remind me to put a foot in Cloud's ass for comin' up with it."

"Live to do it and I'll be certain to remind you." Somehow, Vincent managed to remain perfectly cool and calm through this whole thing. Only the barest hint of stress in his voice gave any indication that he might find the situation in the least bit bothersome.

It was Yuffie who found the thing's soft spot, an area that none of them had thought of where the beast's leg connected to what passed for its shell. With a cry of triumph, she landed a blow with her shuriken, only to be thrown back into an uncomfortable looking bramble.

It had been on the tip of Cid's tongue to make a remark about the option to live through the fight, but the time for that sort of thing had passed. The lucky break of finding the monster's soft spot and concern over whether Yuffie- annoying as she was- was alright silenced anything but a growling yell as he moved in to lance the spot the girl had found for them.

"Cid, back off, it's.." But Vincent's warning came too late. Whatever ability the creature possessed had, within seconds, been set into motion and the pilot was thrown back into the former Turk with considerable force. "..probably going to kill us," he quickly amended as he settled Cid to the ground only to discover the man's shirt covered in a slowly growing stain of blood.

Taking advantage of the scant few seconds of silence that prevailed following the whirl-wind attack, Yuffie crawled out of the bramble to crouch in preparation for another assault. She, too, was covered in small quantities of her own blood, though none of it in large enough amounts to cause any lasting harm.

"Hey, no problem. You boys just sit back and let me take care of this, ok? I'm pretty sure I-----Leviathan's scales..." The girl's expression shifted from grim determination to dumbfounded awe.

"Yuffie? You wanna... well I'll be fucked." The cause for the girl's dismayed words and expression were made abundantly clear as a shadow spread over Cid and a low, rattling growl filled the humid air. "This's new." Somehow, the pilot managed to hold onto his sense of humor even as he struggled to get himself to his feet using his spear as leverage. "Vincent?"

Vincent was in no condition to answer. For whatever reason- be it seeing the blood of his friends or anger at their injury- the man had undergone a transformation that rivaled the demonic. Large, black, bat-like wings that grabbed at the air like dust blackened cobwebs now spread from his back and the rest was something straight from a nightmare.

"...I don't think Vincent's with us right now," Yuffie announced as she stared at their companion. "The upside is that I don't think he's pissed off at us." It was all the speculation she had time for. The opportunity to renew her attack had presented itself and her will to survive dictated that she take it.

Smirking to hide a grimace of pain, Cid moved forward to join in the attack. "Good thing, ain't it?" Perhaps not such a good thing, but the pilot decided he'd deal with that when and if it became an issue. They had to live through this part first.

A blur of shadow and cold passed between the combatants and their enemy, and the rest dissolved into a flurry of anger and chaos. Whatever instinct that had driven Vincent's transformation apparently also drove him to extract the most damage from the creature he was attacking. The result was a bloody mess that might have been mistaken for a massacre had anyone else happened upon the scene.

Yuffie could only shake her head as she surveyed the mess. "Um.. wow." Her reaction was short lived, however, as she turned to glance at Cid, who had ended up in a heap near the edge of the stream that had spawned their opponent. "Oh no. No no no. We're not bleeding our guts out until we're closer to help," she decided, moving over to turn the pilot onto his back. "So you stop right now, you hear me, old man?"

"I hear ya, brat, I told you I'm too mean to die." Not, Cid discovered, that he didn't look like the idea might have to be taken into consideration. "Vincent? You al..." His words stopped short as he caught the last glimpse of red and shadow disappearing into the bushes. "Guess we can discuss it later." Later, the pilot soon figured out, would have to be after he woke up again.

It was dark when Cid finally opened his eyes to find himself laying on a bedroll that seemed much more comfortable than the one he'd slept on- shared with Vincent, his mind corrected- the night before. He also hurt like hell, which was no big surprise considering the amount of bandaging around his midsection and left wrist.

The urge to smoke was beginning to win over the urge to not move in order to avoid pain, and the pilot began to stir and push off the blankets that covered him. He'd nearly made it into a sitting position and was just beginning to search out his cigarettes when he felt a hand press down on his shoulder.

"You shouldn't move, not yet. Your wounds aren't deep but it was hard to stop the bleeding due to their location. We'll take an extra day meeting up with the others but Yuffie has gone ahead to explain our absence." Then, as if Vincent had just figured out the reason behind the pilot's wish to sit up, he moved to sit behind the man.

It took some time, and Cid was sure the former Turk would have been able to move even the lightest sleeper without interrupting their dreams, but eventually he was resting against Vincent and being handed both cigarettes and lighter. "Thanks. You let the kid go alone? ...well, I guess she'll be alright. Hell, she'll probably have a better chance getting there safe without us along to slow her down, anyhow. You doin' ok?"

Several minutes passed before any answer was given and, when Vincent eventually spoke, it was in the softest tone he'd used outside of anger. "I'm fine. The benefit of such transformation seems to be that any wounds that I have received are healed. I... I can't remember what happened after I saw you fall, though. I didn't.." The bandages were indicated with a light touch. "This. I didn't.. did I?"

"What? Kick my ass? Hell no. ...might have been better if you did, though. Gotta say some fuckin' turtle nearly took me down. Damned embarrassing. Only thing you went after was it, not us." Cid took a moment to light the cigarette he'd pulled out before shrugging. "Why're you worried about that shit, anyway? None of us are. You know, you're the one who said only thing we could count on you for was fighting beside us. You goin' off and kickin' our asses'd make you a liar, right? You never struck me as a liar."

"You're very talkative for a wounded man," Vincent pointed out. "I take your point. I'll try not to worry about it in the future, but I could say that you're far too trusting of someone who is in this for his own reasons alone." Anything else he might have said was forgotten in favor of adjusting the blankets and reaching out for the bowl turned ashtray that had become a permanent fixture for the tent.

"Name one of us that ain't in this for their own reasons." Cid made a show of waiting for an answer for all of about five seconds before speaking again. "You can't, because we're all in this for our own reasons. Guess that makes you just like the rest of us, right? You runnin' out of reasons we should cart you behind us in a cage yet? I sure as hell hope so because I'm done smokin' and these bandages are as uncomfortable as hell." With that, the pilot ground his cigarette out in the bowl and sat it aside.

Vincent took that as a signal to place a bottle into Cid's hands, still supporting the man from behind. "You're supposed to drink that," he added helpfully. "I didn't want to risk giving it to you before you were awake and well enough to complain. You've proven yourself to be quite well, injury aside."

"...Ha. Ha. Real funny. Not nice to make fun of a man when he's down." Cid did, however, make short work of the bottle's contents, only to throw it toward the tent's door once it was empty. "What the hell was that? Damn, warn me first."

"Medicine never tastes pleasant. I couldn't risk giving it to you while you were out or weak, but now the wounds should heal fairly quickly. You'll also sleep, but that will help direct the energy you put into everything else toward healing." Vincent finally moved, carefully settling Cid back onto his pillows and pulling the blanket over him.

"Go ahead and make some wise ass comment about the quiet, too." Not that Cid would ever know if his instructions were followed. He only had time to mutter something about being tricked under his breath before drifting off to sleep.

"I would never do that while you're too asleep to hear it," Vincent answered long after Cid had drifted off and then settled in to watch him while he slept.

The sun had not yet risen when Cid woke for the second time. To his credit, he didn't flinch or even startle at the fact that two faintly glowing eyes were watching him. "You sit there all night?" His first attempt to sit up was slightly more successful than the last and by the time the answer came, he was able to prop himself up on an elbow.

"While you slept, yes. There was the possibility that you might wake up and try to move before you were ready to do so. You **have** exhibited a tendency toward stubbornness, after all." Vincent's tone was far from teasing, as if the things he said were merely fact to be shared. "Your bandages can be taken off now, I believe. The wounds should be nearly healed."

"You should have gotten a litt... now wait just a goddamn minute. It's persistence, not stubbornness. There's a difference." Satisfied with his explanation, Cid glanced down at the bandages covering his midsection. "Can't see too well."

Vincent reached out to begin unwinding the bandages but paused to search out a small flashlight to offer the pilot some illumination. "You can't see very well, I can see quite clearly." Returning to the careful unwrapping of bandages, the gunman leaned forward to inspect the wounded area, going as far as to run his fingers over the already fading marks. "It needs to be washed, but all traces should be gone by the time we're ready to leave."

"Meaning we'll have to head out to the water again and risk runnin' into one of them damn things again. One's enough, don't you think?" The answer to Cid's question came in the form of a cloth drenched in colder than needed water that elicited a yelp. "Damnit, warn me first, I told ya. Shit.. you're enjoying this."

To his credit, the only outward sign Vincent gave of enjoying the pilot's plight was an ever so slight upturn of the corners of his mouth. "I did not enjoy having you injured," he corrected. "I will admit that you had me worried at first. When you passed out I thought it might be from blood loss but then I realized that thing had used some sort of venom on you. I am, however, enjoying your colorful reaction to the situation. ...because you're alive to react."

It took Cid a moment to absorb the meaning of those words. Vincent's attitude had warmed considerably, though he was certain the others hadn't realized just how much. The former Turk was up to more than one or two sentences in most conversations. Unfortunately, the time Cid had gotten through the implications to come up with some sort of reply, it was too late.

"Don't get me wrong. I don't intend to stay after we're done, regardless of the outcome. If we die, then it won't matter-- if it ever did. If we live... If we live then I intend to go. I haven't decided where yet, but I'm part of this. I'm part of the illness infesting the planet. You don't think I'm a monster, and maybe you're right, but I'm not human anymore. I don't belong and I would be a reminder of their fears. ...I didn't prevent this, I _should_ have prevented this."

"Yeah. You're gonna stop a fuckin' madman and the **entire** company backing him. ...wait. That's what we're trying to do, in a way, isn't it. Shit. Guess that means you're just as nuts as the rest of us. Difference is that there's more than one of us. You tried, I guess that's what matters." Cid shrugged as he watched the gunman's efforts to clean his now nearly healed midsection, then reached down to grab hold of that hand to stop the process. "You know, that's the thing about you. Every damned time I think we're making a few steps forward, you take about a dozen back. It's frustratin'." Using his hold on Vincent's hand to pull the man forward into a kiss aimed at shutting him up.

Perhaps it was the fact that the kiss happened so quickly that kept Vincent from doing anything but giving in at first, giving him no time to think until he was already returning it. It could even have been that he'd wanted the kiss to happen, as much as he might claim otherwise. Whatever the reasons, it was need for breath that led him to push away from Cid with the hand not trapped by the pilot's grasp. "Why do you do that?"

"What? You mean kiss you or want you in general? I kissed you partly to shut you the hell up, and partly because I wanted to. Now you're gonna ask why I wanted to, right? Maybe you should take ... you know what? It wouldn't matter one damn bit, would it? If I told you to have a look at yourself?" Cid smirked, looking far too pleased with himself. "You may be the most beautiful person I've seen in years, but you're the last person that's gonna admit it."

"...you're still drugged, go back to sleep." Vincent's voice was colored with the faintest hints of sarcasm. "Then again, perhaps going out to wash would be a better idea. I'm beginning to think that you get scruffier with every fight. Tell me, is this a special skill of yours?" Without waiting for an answer to the question, he stood and held out his hand in offer to help Cid to his feet. "Or an inherent ability?"

Cid made a face at Vincent as he took the man's hand and stood within the confines of the tent. "You're really funny, know that? Real fuckin' riot. C'mon, I want to wash the dust off the rest of me and I don't think it's a good idea to go alone, considerin'."

"Considering that you have every intention of making me wash your back, is that it?" Without another word, Vincent walked out of the tent and toward the stream they'd been following to their destination, leaving the door open behind him as if fully expecting Cid to follow.

"...Damnit, I hate when you do that," Cid muttered, but wasted no time in following, smirking all the while.

That the walk to the water was in silence wasn't at all surprising to Cid. Vincent preferred not to say much, even if he'd gotten better over the past few weeks, and he was content to allow the man his quiet for the time being. After all, he reasoned, once the dirt and sweat of travel and fighting were gone, he'd make sure some noise was made.

"I've decided that it worries me when you are that silent, Cid. Would you care to share your thoughts? I would like some warning." Vincent's lips curved ever so slightly into what might have been a smile. "But talk and undress at the same time, please."

"Y'know, yer gettin' awful smart lipped lately," Cid pointed out, looking quite amused at the situation. Amusement changed to shock as he stepped into the water. "Shiiit! ...fuck that water's cold. Couple degrees more and we'd be fuckin' skatin'. What th..." A sound interrupted the blond's words. It was rough and unpracticed and odd enough to make him turn to find out just what the hell had crawled out of the woods to attack them.

"You... you nearly jumped out of the water...Your expression.." Vincent was, surprisingly enough, laughing. "Forgive me, it's just that... you looked so.. so funny.." The laugh lasted for just a few breaths more before it subsided and he finally stepped into the water. "It's melt from a glacier. I thought the cold might do you some good."

Cid smirked and waited until Vincent was only a few inches from him before grabbing hold of his hand to drag him into deeper water. "Just means you're gonna have to warm me up. I'm injured, remember? Can't have me catchin' a chill," he informed, pulling the gunman against him. "Otherwise you gotta take care of me again."

"You said you wanted to wash." If the reminder was unwelcome, it was at least practical. "And then I promise to protect you from any danger of chill." Vincent appeared to have no trouble with the water's temperature as he took it upon himself to wash Cid's back as best he could.

Despite Cid's efforts at returning the favor of back washing, they somehow managed to get clean. By the time they both waded into shallower water toward the large rocks at the water's edge, the cool night air felt warm and the day's warmth seeping from the dry stone felt even better.

Vincent was the first to break the silence he'd insisted on while washing. "Still cold?" Cid was regarded through long strands of wet hair as deft fingers ran through the strands to work out the knots. "Or did that tire you?"

"What? The wash? Takes a hell of a lot more than a little bit of cold water to wear my ass out," Cid answered as he reached out to take over the job of combing Vincent's hair with his own hands. "Didn't seem to bother you, yer still warm."

"And what will it take to wear your ass- as well as the rest of you- out? ...or do I even need to ask that question?" Vincent relaxed and even seemed to like the way Cid's fingers ran through his hair, going so far as to move so that his back was to the pilot. "The cold doesn't bother me. Not now. I used to hate it. Now I find that I'm able to ignore almost anything, or I could. You've made it difficult for me to ignore you."

"Yeah, well, it's a talent. You're not so easy to ignore, yourself, you know. Trust me. I tried." Satisfied that he'd succeeded in removing the tangles from Vincent's hair, Cid let his fingers slide over the man's shoulders. "So much for bein' all fuckin' cool and aloof. Yer not, you know, not really."

Vincent glanced over his shoulder, giving Cid a confused look. "I'm not? You mean you won't allow it," he corrected. "You're loud, Cid, and I'm sure you haven't heard of the concept of personal space. You push your way in without regard for anyone's objections, and then you make sure you'd be missed if you were to back away. You really are an annoying man. I was right about you from the very beginning. You're difficult to live with. You're the worst kind of trouble... what are you smirking about now?"

"Most I've heard you say all day, Vincent. You know somethin'? You protest too goddamn much, it wastes time." Any further protests were silenced with a kiss that ended only when Vincent pulled back from him. "Still annoying?"

"Annoying, irritating, smug bastard," Vincent answered as he turned to straddle the pilot's legs. "Loud, difficult, presumptuous... Damn you." The words ended in a low growl as he leaned forward to capture Cid's lips again, coaxing them apart to deepen the kiss.

Cid was dimly aware of the fact that he rather enjoyed the feeling of the cold, metalic fingers dragging down the skin of his back. That he was being so efficiently damned was forgotten completely by the kiss, which he dragged out until he had no choice but to pull back to breath. "Gonna tell me the parts you don't like, too?" With the surprise of the kiss now fading, he remembered that he'd been in the midst of a careful exploration of the other man's skin.

"Don't you ever shut up?" Vincent's eyes narrowed into a glare that had nothing to do with anger. "I'll tell you what I don't like," he promised as he leaned in to nip lightly at the skin of Cid's neck. "...when I get past the merely annoying. You have a lot of annoying."

"That what we're callin' it?" To his credit, it was the last thing Cid said with any coherency. If he was surprised at the way Vincent seemed to know just where and how to touch him, he had one minor complaint: "Fuckin' packs're in the tent."

"Water, Cid," Vincent pointed out helpfully, but with no more coherency, before dipping his hand down to the surface of the cold water that nearly surrounded them. Grinning wickedly at the blond's apparent lack of understanding, he provided example of just exactly how that water was to be used.

"Oh." If finding a way to render Cid speechless had been the goal, it had certainly been reached. In fact, he managed to say nothing for several long minutes until, deciding that enough time had been spent in preparation, he let out a low growl. "C'mere."

Vincent nodded without protest, though there was a faint- and one might even say smug- grin on his face as he moved to lower himself slowly onto Cid's cock with a faint hiss. "Move..." The word was both order and plea, but he wasted no time in waiting to be heeded.

Cid answered by reaching out to grab hold of Vincent's hips, urging him to move faster. Thoughts of where they were disappeared to the point that he lost track of the fact that they were on what should have been a very uncomfortable outcropping of rock.

It was Vincent that cried out first, disrupting the slumber of birds roosting in a nearby tree who then took flight for quieter sleeping space when Cid's voice followed. There was another sound in the midst of the flutter of wings that could have been a laugh, but both were too distracted to study it with any clarity.


End file.
